MUSICIANS PETITION TO CANCEL TV COMEDY ON THE 'SESSION FAMINE' OF 2014

A number of Irish musicians have begun a petition to cancel a new comedy series based on the 'Great Session Famine' of 2014, comlpaining that television producers have 'crossed the line'.

The series, which was commissioned by Channel 4, is to be written by an Irish musician and based on a family of musicians living during the session famine and how they cope without decent music.

However the news has been met with fierce opposition from some conservative musical quarters, who say that the series makes light of a difficult period of Irish musical life and trivialises a serious situation such as not being able to find any decent session.

Organiser of the petition Treasa Ní Fhaighin explains:

"This is ridiculous! Is nothing sacred anymore! I mean, a lot of musicians struggled during this period with many starving to death, figuritively of course, from session hunger. And here we have a couple of Brits saying it's alright to make fun of!"

"Not on my watch! I don't want to laugh at anything that takes the piss out of us musicians! Sure I don't even laugh at the funny tune names. 'Hump in the Quilt', you won't see me laughing at that! 'Come up to the room I want ye!', no way hosay!"

'The Great Session Famine' of 2014 affected thousands of Irish musicians nationwide through lack of tunes. Many informal sessions have stopped leaving only a few pubs with sessions constantly from the Cobblestone, Tigh Coili and Brogans. However these pubs can only hold so many, leaving a lot of musicians left to wander aimlessly outside.

The Channel 4 Director of Programming has said that the same people giving out about the new series are the same who watch comedies about 3 Catholic priests living on an island, a foul-mouthed elderly woman and her family, a Nobleman during the great plague in England and a working class English family named Royle.

There is reportedly several signatures so far however doubts over the authenticity of these have been raised as the names Michael Coleman, Patsy Tuohey and John McKenna appear a number of times.